Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and founder of the Second Amendment Foundation will appear this Sunday, Jan. 26 on the nationally-syndicated “Gun Talk” with Tom Gresham to discuss the controversy surrounding California’s microstamping law that now has major gun companies essentially dropping off of the state’s approved handgun roster.
Also joining Gresham during his Sunday program, which airs at 2 p.m. (Eastern) and 11 a.m. (Pacific), will be Ruger CEO Mike Fifer and Smith & Wesson Director of Marketing Paul Pluff. For a listing of local radio stations where the program may be heard, visit guntalk.com.
According to Gresham, it is Fifer’s prediction that “within a year or two, they’re (semi-auto handguns) all gone. Everything’s off the list.”
Gottlieb noted that SAF is currently involved in a lawsuit challenging the California law, signed in 2009, and the regulatory scheme that arbitrarily bans handguns based on a roster of “certified” handguns approved by the State.
“This statutory requirement is unworkable and firearms manufacturers are saying so in no uncertain terms,” Gottlieb noted. “California citizens are facing a Second Amendment outrage because of this ridiculous roster, and a technology requirement that has no demonstrable value in crime prevention or firearm safety.”
The controversy erupted this week after Ruger announced that, “We are working hard to serve our customers in California and will do all we can to fight this draconian law. We continue to submit pistols to the independent test lab for testing and those pistols meet all the requirements of California in effect when the pistols first appeared on the Roster, i.e., everything except microstamping. We have been informed by the lab that the CA DOJ will not even consider these “new” pistols for inclusion on the Roster unless they satisfy the microstamping regulations, which numerous studies have found unworkable. Until microstamping is repealed, we expect that Ruger pistols – some of the safest available – will continue to be forced off the Roster.”
That was followed by Smith & Wesson’s declaration that, “Smith & Wesson does not and will not include microstamping in its firearms. A number of studies have indicated that microstamping is unreliable, serves no safety purpose, is cost prohibitive and, most importantly, is not proven to aid in preventing or solving crimes. The microstamping mandate and the company’s unwillingness to adopt this so-called technology will result in a diminishing number of Smith & Wesson semi-automatic pistols available for purchase by California residents.”
With more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (www.ccrkba.org) is one of the nation’s premier gun rights organizations. As a non-profit organization, the Citizens Committee is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States.
